I'm definitely not a virgin
by Sparks' Magic
Summary: Alfred F. Jones thought he was going to finally be a hero. Instead he's going to be a sacrifice for a demon.
1. Prologue

It wasn't really his fault he was stuck like this. No, those stupid village elders were the ones to blame – they'd misled him and left him to die like a lamb for slaughter. Totally deliberately! What kind of savages were these people?

At any rate, he hadn't meant to end up tied to an altar surrounded by a wall of green fucking fire. How was he supposed to know the creepy little ritual would lead to this mess? It's not like he knows every tiny detail about every weird-ass Kingdom village and its weird-ass inhabitants. Every village has its own little secrets they don't tell passing strangers; even the really heroic ones like himself. This particular one, England or something, was just weird to the extent that even he, Alfred F. Jones, was slightly as-terrified-as-shit. He hailed the Kingdom of _America_, for Feiron's sake. The Kingdom of crazy antics and exuberance, where odd was practically ordinary.

But this latest predicament?  
Alfred winced against the ropes tying him to the altar.  
This blew every 18th birthday celebration out of the water. With knobs on.

And the best part?

He hadn't even met the goddamn demon yet.

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**AN - Ok, hello! This is just a prologue of something I might or might not continue with. Send me a review or PM or contact me at my Tumblr account if you wish to see what happens next! (The title is only a work in progress. Any ideas...?)**

**Sparks**

**AN 2 - Yeah... I am continuing. Yay? Please continue to read if you want to find out more, just beware, it might take a while to actually reach this part in the story. It's going to be a long one. :)**


	2. The Kingdom of America

The Kingdom of America was a land of prosperity, indulgence and extravagance. Its King and Queen were known throughout the Earth Lands for being kind and fair, and their knights famous for their honour and chivalrous ways. Land was wide and rich, spreading for miles into beautiful fields, mountains as tall as the very skies and lakes as deep as the earth itself. Enough food could be grown for every person be they a noble or one of the townsfolk. Cotton could be grown for all their clothing, as well as space for animals to graze and live in comfort. Sheep for wool and cows for beef and milk roamed happily over the countryside, while chickens lived inside many homes, providing eggs for the families. Life was simple but life was good.

National occasions were celebrated in high spirits throughout the Kingdom, with parties and fireworks lasting long into the night. Shows of daring and skill were often performed for the people during these celebrations; jousting tournaments, sword fights and archery contests were appreciated by everyone. Other performers with more unusual skills could also be seen in bigger festivals, such as fire eaters and snake charmers. Almost every person in the Kingdom would benefit from the biggest of the occasions, for they would bring in visitors from all over the other Kingdoms and Empires. The visitors needed food, shelter and only too often a warm bath; something the inhabitants of the town could give them for a price. But people would not only buy essentials, but trivial trinkets, gifts for their loved ones back home. Any merchant or tradesman with a few pretty baubles could make an enormous profit on a Festival Day.

Alfred F. Jones was one of these skilled men. He was a metalsmith, crafting everything from delicate rings to razor sharp swords that could cut through both flesh and bone. He did a steady business in his home town of Washington, but rarely ventured outside of the area to sell his wares. With his extraordinary skill, he could've made his fortune, but he always held himself back. He didn't want to be a famous metalsmith. He wanted to be a knight, saving fair maidens (or fair gentlemen) and killing demons and dragons. A hero, like in the tales of old and the legends that crept in from the Kingdoms of Gaul and Britain.

But, Alfred was just a metalsmith, sharpening his swords in the hope of one day needing them.

It was an ordinary Tuesday when his life was jolted into insanity. The sun was shining in a cloudless sky, the heat turning the air into a dizzying haze. There wasn't a breath of wind and no sight of any travellers at all. Alfred sat outside the front of his shop under the shade of the awning, whistling to no real tune. He bopped his head up and down, grinding a dripping whetstone down the edge of a rough blade. The blue-silver blade shone with an almost blinding reflection even in the shade, so bright it appeared to be glowing. It was several minutes before Alfred moved any other part of his body than his head and his hand, and that was simply to dip his whetstone into a wooden pail beside him. He swirled it around for a few seconds, then pulled it back out and continued to sharpen the sword. This action was repeated every hour, and so Alfred did his job.

The day was slipping away, and yet the entire town was still. It was nearing evening before the people began to really awaken, when the heat became less oppressive and the sunlight less glaring. Children came running onto the streets, playing games in the dusty roads. Their high pitched voices made Alfred crack the smallest of smiles, eyes softening behind wire glasses. Next came their parents, scolding the children for making such loud noises and to _get back inside this very minute, or so help them come dinner time...!_ Shadows of movement and snatches of laughter could be heard behind closed doors and windows. People came into the main town with their pockets weighted down with coins, looking to buy a treat for a desert, or something pretty to wear for going out in. One of these people approached Alfred.

She was a pretty little thing, just turned 16 and still as fresh as a spring lake. Her hair was tied up out of her face and was shielded by a dainty pink sun-hat. A white dress swung and billowed below her knees as she headed towards the shop with her face set in a nervous-but-determined expression. Alfred looked up at the sound of her footsteps, flashing a Hollywood smile and sliding the blue blade under a sheet beside the chair.

"Hey there, sweetie. What can I do for a pretty gal like yourself?" he asked, calloused hand pressed under his chin. The girl blushed a little, but held her head high.  
"I'm here t' buy a brooch," she informed him with a crooked smile, "A nice one, mind. A present for a friend." She stood under the awning, twisting her dress in her hands. Alfred stood, gesturing towards the open door to his shop.  
"Come on in, Miss...?"  
"Emily. Emily Roads."  
"Come on in, Miss Roads. We'll find you summat that's perfect for your friend, I promise!"

A giddy Emily left Alfred's shop with a copper dragonfly brooch wrapped in brown paper and five silver pieces poorer. Alfred watched her go with a nostalgic smile, remembering the time when he bought a bracelet for the boy that sat next to him in class. The boy, Tim, had thought it was lovely. His mother never found out that it wasn't from a girl, but Tim's best friend.

_Funny, _Alfred thought with a touch of sadness, _I never did tell him it was from me. _Shaking his head, Alfred made to sit back down his chair, when the sound of footsteps approached the shop again. Assuming that Emily Roads or whatever her name was had come back, he plastered on his Hollywood grin, internally frustrated.

"Hey there, what do- Oh. Hello. How may I help you two fine gentleman?" Alfred had spun around to find himself in front of not a petite American teen, but two men, clearly from out of town. They wore tailored outfits that were shaped to their slim, not-worked-a-day figures (dust-covered though they were) and black high-heeled boots. The leather wasn't scuffed in the slightest and the brass buckles shone in the reddening evening light. Instantly wary, Alfred straightened his posture and lost the charming smile, instead acting as high-class as possible.

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**AN - Hi! I'm back, and yes, this is short and ends at a bit of a cliff-hanger-ish. I just wanted to get something posted so people didn't lose interest!**

**Please note, I am British, so will write with British spellings, even when it's set in what is essentially America. Also, I will write dialogue 'correctly', but any words that are actually said differently, like 'gal' or 'summat' will be spelt as such. Accents, meh. I can't write accents well enough to bother, so I won't. Please feel free to imagine the American accents.**


	3. A Lighter Sword

Men dressed as smartly as these two didn't just come to small, homely towns at this time of night. They were travellers, that much was obvious from the dust on their still unwashed clothes. But the more important part was that they were rich strangers to wear such smart clothes. Coupled with the fact that they had come straight to the only shop in the area that sold weapons, and it was clear to Alfred that these men could be dangerous, or at least should not be trifled with. Therefore, he had to show he shouldn't be messed with either, until he worked out exactly what these people were doing in his town.

The two men still stood in silence in front of Alfred, whose mouth was beginning to fall into something guarded.

"Excuse me, but I've got to ask that if you're not gonna buy anything, you should leave. I have other customer's orders to attend to as well." Alfred threw a look that was too icy to be considered at all polite towards the dirt road that led to the Travellers Inn. The shorter of the men stared Alfred up and down, thoroughly unimpressed, before turning to speak to his companion. They spoke rapid-fire in a language Alfred couldn't comprehend, arguing over whatever Alfred had said to cause such a fuss. The smaller man appeared to have won whatever he was after, as he laughed smugly while the taller just sighed. He flicked a wayward lock of dark brown hair out of his eyes and turned to face Alfred.

"No," he grunted, "We will be buying from you. May we look at weaponry?" Still uneasy, but glad the men were being polite, Alfred gestured to the open door of his shop.

"Well then, come on in. My name is Alfred F Jones, and I hope I can help you." Alfred flashed a charming smile, and he could almost feel the tension in the atmosphere.

The two men traipsed silently into the shop, heading straight for the brightly lit displays of heavy battle swords and long bows as tall as a man. Alfred followed behind, taking a closer look at the mysterious travellers. He figured that if he could tell where they came from, he might be able to tell what exactly they were doing in this town so far into the working season.

They were obviously foreign and both were from the same area. Both had sleek brown hair with a few kinks and curls, though the shorter's shone auburn in the flickering candle light. The taller of the two was older by what appeared to be a fair few years, although Alfred couldn't be sure because of the amount of scars that littered his face. The younger man had hazel eyes and emitted an air of constant irritation. From what Alfred could tell by their accents they were from somewhere near the Empire España, although he didn't think that they were Spanish themselves.

Alfred had no clue where they could be from then. Geography had never been his strong point. (And no, it wasn't that he _wouldn't_ ask, he was just still _wary _that they might be dangerous. Not _scared_ or anything.)

After watching the men for a few more minutes, Alfred headed over to where they were standing, laying the charm on thick. It couldn't hurt to butter up these wealthy men now he thought that they weren't going to kill him on the spot.

"So, gentlemen, has anythin' caught your eyes?" he asked, allowing himself to slip into his normal accent. The smaller man spoke this time, his voice much deeper and richer (_and hotter- nope not going there) _than Alfred had been expecting. "Your swords are good quality, but way too fucking heavy for carrying around with all these God damn fiddly bits. Haven't you got a normal sword, bastard?" He hadn't even faced Alfred to speak and Alfred was amazed at the mouthful of expletives he had just uttered so boldly. The taller man seemed unconcerned by all the swearing, instead nodding his agreement and glaring expectantly at Alfred.

"Well, Mr... Jones, was it? _Have_ you got a lighter blade?" Alfred raised his eyebrows, but nodded slowly.

"I have some more simple designs on the wall on your left if you wanna take a look." He moved over to where the plain swords and daggers were kept, pointing out several of his better pieces with pride.

When the taller picked up a perfectly tempered blue-steel sword and muttered in approval, Alfred puffed up in happiness. In a small town like Washington, in the work season it was hard to find buyers who appreciated a well made weapon. Since most of Alfred's customers came to buy jewelry, it could sometimes be weeks before Alfred had the chance to talk about his passion in the prettiest and deadliest of weapons, the sword. These travellers knew their blades, and Alfred was quickly hooked into a conversation with the older man about his trade. After a few minutes of chatting with the man, Alfred knew that the his name was Romulus Vargas and the younger man was his nephew, Lovino Vargas, but nothing more than that. Vargas was particular never to mention more than that, and would quickly change the subject if the conversation started heading into murkier waters.

Eventually, Lovino butted in clenching a steel-edged iron sword in his right fist, eyebrows furrowed in anger.

"Oi, bastard," he said with a sniff, "This sword feels unbalanced. What the fuck have you done to it?" Alfred peered up and down at him, taking in his stance and grip on the sword handle. Slowly, he began to laugh.

"Erm, sorry, but it isn't unbalanced. You're just holding it wrong." Lovino opened his mouth to protest, face contorted in anger, but Alfred continued speaking, "Oh no, it isn't your fault, this is just made very specifically. I'll show you, look." He held out his hand for the sword, which Lovino handed over with a suspicious frown.

"You see, you've gotta hold it differently than you would usually, because this is designed to have an amazing upswing. You can twist around with it real easy, see?" Alfred gripped the hilt just below the crossguard with his right hand slightly twisted and held the pommel with his left. He swung the sword in a upwards arc, let go of the pommel and swiped it hard to the right, balancing with his left arm. Grinning a little ruefully, he made a sharp slash to the left; exactly where his opponent's hip would be unprotected. Lovino's suspicion softened into a grudging respect for the young man, who was clearing much more skilled than he had given him credit for previously. This man knew how to wield a weapon.

Stopping his demonstration there, Alfred handed the sword back to Lovino.

"Do you see what I mean? It's a lot lighter than your usual blade, but it's also a bit brittler." Lovino ran his fingers down the fuller and then the sharper edge of the blade. Wincing at the bead of blood that welled from his index finger, he nodded.

"It's fucking sharp though. I'm going to buy it." Here he glanced at Romulus, who dug around in his pockets for what Alfred assumed would be money.

Instead, the older man pulled out a chain with a strangely shaped pendant hung in the centre. Curious, Alfred leaned forward, trying to have a better look. At a closer view, the pendant appeared to be an arrow made of silver, inlaid with tiny rubies that seemed to glow with an inner light. It was captivating, mysterious and so unlike anything Alfred had seen before. Alfred leaned even closer.  
It seemed to be calling to him, flicking on a switch inside of him he didn't even know existed, let alone knew was off. The arrow seemed to be trying to fight its way off of the chain, those shining rubies jumping out of their tiny prisons. Alfred could only just hear what Romulus was saying, but it sounded murky and distant.

"It allows the wearer to 'see what is there'. That is the only thing we know about this pendant, except that it is worth a lot a lot of money. We would like to trade it for your sword." Alfred heard the last words like they were a shout and they wrenched him out of the strange spell of the silver arrow. He shook his head like a dog out of water and considered the deal. The pendant was Magic; it could charm even him, but if he could learn to control its power... He could take it to a witch, see what it really was, see if he could wield the Magic hidden inside it. Magicians were powerful in this world, respected for their skills and knowledge. Alfred could be one of the great Magicians and be remembered for hundreds of years to come...

The sword wasn't worth a great deal anyway.

"Yes," Alfred found himself saying, "Yes. It's a deal."

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**AN - Well hello! I intended to post this earlier but I had to buy things for school. You may have noticed that my chapters are quite short; this is because I take forever to write as I'm essentially betaing my own work. I have no idea how the Beta system works on FanFiction and was wondering if anyone would either like to beta for me or would be willing to tell me how the system works. Thanks! **

**Sparks**


	4. Crashes

The soft silver moonlight filtered through the broken slats in Alfred's roof, leaking a stain across the sparse bedroom. Alfred himself laid fully clothed atop his bed covers, staring without seeing at the white ceiling. Flashes of colour flew around his vision like fluttering butterflies or twittering birds, twisting into rainbow ribbons when he squeezed his eyelids shut.

Thoughts seemed to twist and jump in exactly the same way, from one direction to another in split seconds.

Thoughts of burning heat, of a dark, deep red liquid dripping from ivory fangs, of a roar that could penetrate flesh and bone and the mind.

Thoughts of rough, ritualistic chanting, of a forest blackened by a layer of soot, of glinting, inhuman eyes.

These sights had been haunting him for days, ever since the two mysterious men had left the oh-so-pretty pendant in his care. He was sick and terrified of the dreams that accompanied his every waking hour, but if he fell asleep, the images didn't stop. Instead they just grew hazy and noisy.

Alfred had the sneaking suspicion that he was starting to go mad. He knew it was the pendant's doing; it had to be, it was the only Magical thing he owned, as well as the fact that the dreams started as soon as he had acquired it. Laying on his bed still, he rolled over to face the wall and the door, clutching the pendant tightly in his fist. The dawn would peek over the horizon soon, a curious creature come to investigate a new beginning. The minutes trickled over Alfred like bugs over a fallen tree, but he couldn't tell how long he had been simply staring into space. He needed to climb out of this terrible spiral of crazy and work out what to do; he was a hero of the people, he couldn't just lay around like the drunkards in the taverns! He had a job, a purpose in life that _helped _people, and like Hell if he was going to let them down.

Waiting patiently and trying to ignore the flashing images still swirling like tornadoes in his brain, Alfred toyed with the idea of going for help. He hadn't opened his shop for the last few days, and had only left the house to fetch bread and meat, but if he didn't start to pull back his business, he wouldn't have one to return to. Money, too, was going to grow tight and he would end up starving in his own home. This fact cemented an idea in the corner of his brain. He could go to see the witch in the town a few miles south of Washington, like he had originally planned, but rather than see if she could help him control it, maybe she could help him rid himself of it.

With that thought comforting him, Alfred fell asleep and unclenched the muscles in his hand. The pendant fell to the dirty wooden floor with a soft _thump_, landing in the dust and sending a cloud of it into the air. Sitting innocently in the muck of the floor, it slowly began to spin, re-churning the settling dust. The red glow emanated from the rubies again as it span through the air like treacle, but after a minute it stopped.

The arrowhead was left facing east as the eerie glow faded, but then the pendant itself started to pale, as if the metal was being scrubbed away. After a few minutes, it was barely a ghost, just a whisper of the previous elegant enigma on an ordinary silver chain.

Alfred had no dreams that night.

The morning came in a burst of golden sunlight through Alfred's old and moth-eaten curtains, filling the room with a warm feeling of contentment as he awoke fresh for the first time in a week. No dreams had plagued him at all, not even a strange flash of colour or muted scream, and for that Alfred could have cheered. In fact, he nearly did, then remembered that he still needed to find out exactly what the pendant was; one night of peace didn't mean that he was going to be free forever. A clanging noise echoed up from the kitchen downstairs but Alfred was too wrapped up in sleep to care, so he ignored it. But a plain white ceiling wasn't the most entertaining thing on the planet and Alfred had an exceptionally short attention span. Boredom grew from a niggling seed to a huge, hungry tree inside his stomach, and curiosity soon followed it, albeit sleepily.

_Probably only that stupid cat next door, _he registered vaguely,_ I'll check it out I suppose... _

Clambering out of bed with a groan and one hand threaded in his hair, he padded his way across his bedroom to the chair where he had flung his clothes the previous night without a thought. He stared at them blankly for a minute, blinking slowly to rid himself of the tattered cobwebs of his sleep that were preventing him from thinking straight. The hand not tugging knots of his bed-head reached out for the rumpled shirt without Alfred even realising it had happened, and he slipped it over each shoulder with more than a little difficulty. As he finally managed to dress himself without completely ruining his outfit by punching any holes through it, another crash (although it should have been called a crashing tinkle, as the sound was recognisable as shattering glass) crawled up through the wood of the door. This noise finally shocked Alfred out of his it's-too-early-in-the-morning-for-this-shit daze and he stood up ramrod straight, straining to hear any more clues.

_Come on Al, it's just the cat. It's got in somehow, broken some stuff in a panic. You can shoo it out, then get some breakfast. Right? Let's go then!_

He crept across the room without putting his shoes on, easing the door open without a sound. The carpeted hallway muffled the gentle padding of Alfred's footsteps, but he still grabbed the rough sword he kept by the entrance to his bedroom, just in case. The occasional loud bang continued to float up, becoming louder as Alfred made his way to the kitchen.

He stood in front of the closed door, sword clutched so tightly in both hands that his knuckles were as white as spider's webs and his nails gouged half moons into the leather of the grip. Noises that were too quiet to be heard before were loud now: huffing breaths; grunts of pain; footsteps; the odd curse in a strange language.

_So, it's not the cat at any rate... _

Alfred took a deep breath in, filling his lungs with air in order to calm his shaking arms and sweating hands. This... intruder would regret doing, well, whatever they were doing, in his house!

Still grasping the sword by the worn grip, Alfred kicked the door open, screaming at the top of his lungs.

"Get the fuck out of my house, asshole! You have no idea who you're- OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?"

Alfred's kitchen was not what anyone could call small, although it wasn't the largest in the world either. However, it was by far the largest room in his house, taking up the majority of the ground floor. Cupboards lined all the walls in uniform rows, some too full to close properly and where packet edges spilled out of the small gaps in the doors. An elegant oak table stood proudly in the centre of the room with 6 hand crafted chairs tucked neatly underneath it. But it was dwarfed by the sheer size of the creature that sat on top of the table, swinging its tail in undulating circles.

Although its body was mainly humanoid and appeared to be male, its arms and legs were covered in a layer of light green scales and huge yellow bat wings that sprouted from its shoulder blades were pressed up against the ceiling. A ruff of skin the same colour and texture as the wings mimicked hair and fell to the nape of the creature's neck.

At the sound of Alfred's screech it span around to face him and its eyes burned an unearthly yellow. A red mouth full of long curved fangs hung open, a purpling forked tongue sliding through the gap between the front two. Heaving breaths pushed its barrel chest up and down and Alfred felt every single drop of blood drain from his face individually.

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AN - I'm so sorry I haven't posted in so long but I wanted to concentrate on schoolwork for the first half term, which pushed fanfic writing to the bottom of my to do pile. However, now I can write again!

But seriously. I can't apologise enough. Also, when did this turn into some crazy fantasy thing, it was supposed to be more normal for at least a little while...


	5. Preussen Boy

Alfred inched back away from the monster, his pulse thundering through his body like a drum beat, filling him with electric adrenaline. His arm brought up the sword to protect his face on instinct, the sharp edge facing outwards. Once he felt the familiar knots and grooves from the wood of the door, he stopped, taking in a deep breath through his nose. The beast hadn't moved since it had turned around; it just perched on the table, staring its soulless eyes into Alfred's own, not even twitching a muscle (and it had a multitude of those). The air crackled with tension and Alfred's fear weighed heady and thick at the bottom of his spine.

A sickly-sweet smell, like burning flesh, seared through the air, tickling Alfred's nostrils. It was horrible, yet for some reason that he didn't understand, Alfred recognised it. Images of his nightmares, of cloaked figures chanting around a black flamed bonfire, flashed through his mind. He tried to reel back from the smell, wafting the air away from his face with the blade, but couldn't escape. Floundering, his sword slammed on the wall beside him, sending an resounding crash rippling around the two figures.

The sudden noise was startling in the silence, smashing the delicate calm to skin slicing shards. The beast awoke from its eerie stillness, thrashing its tree-trunk limbs and roaring loud enough to wake the entire town. Ears ringing from the combined noise of the beast and the sword, Alfred threw the sword on the floor. It skittered across the floor until it reached the table, where it span to a halt next to the dragging tail of the beast. He didn't see any where it landed, as his crossed forearms covered his face and his eyes were screwed shut. Pink and orange stripes ran across the vision of his inner eyelids and all his other senses soared into over-drive. He could hear the beast's snuffling breaths and the scratching noises the scales on its skin made as they scraped over the wood of the table. It was moving, Alfred tell that much, but it wasn't until hot breath brushed his face that he realised I had moved to directly in front of him.

The resulting squeak that issued from the back of Alfred's throat did not actually happen and he would deny its existence for the rest of his life. He screwed his eyes even tighter than they had been before, so hard that the muscles in his forehead were aching. The breaths continued to curl over his skin, raising his flesh and the tiny hairs on the back of his neck like sparks of lightning. A huffing snort reached Alfred's ear and as scales scraped across the skin of his earlobe he wrenched his eyes open in shock.

They widened further when all Alfred could see was a dark red smoke swirling around the monstrous figure. He coughed as he breathed in some of the smoke, but when it cleared, he nearly choked instead.

Red eyes stared into his own, but they weren't that of a scaled, winged beast. They were human. Almond shaped and thickly lashed, they resembled the eyes of someone he'd met a long time ago, (but memories of his childhood weren't Alfred's biggest issue at that moment).

Lowering his arms gingerly from their defensive position in front of his face, Alfred saw not the beast, but a young man with pure white hair and not even a stitch of clothing. He looked almost as shocked as Alfred felt, and was running his hands all over his body, a blinding smile creeping across his face. Alfred took an ever-so-slightly wobbly step forwards, reaching a hand out to the man.

"Um... Hello? Do you... speak?" Alfred's mind was in complete array, trying to comprehend the idea that the beast sitting on top of his kitchen table (which had taken a while in itself) had turned into a naked man in a cloud of smoke. He did the first thing he had thought of, which had been to see if the beast-boy could understand him. When he – it? - didn't reply, Alfred pulled his hand back down to his side, taking in the man's appearance in closer detail.

He had snow white hair and those eerily familiar red eyes, but past that Alfred couldn't see any distinguishing features. His face was quite ordinary, if more handsome than the usual man, and his stature not too tall, nor too short. Alfred was surprised to realise that compared to the rippling muscled limbs of the beast, the man was rather lean – strong, but not a lion wrestler by any means. (Alfred could contest to the fact that lion wrestlers had plenty of muscle, having been in a bar fight with one the previous month. He still sported a bruise on his backside from the punches; it was the one decorating his shoulder that came from the bedpost)

"I- Ich... verstehe... nicht...?" The man's harsh voice startled Alfred out of his reverie, although he didn't understand the language he spoke.

"You can speak? Wait, I'm speaking in the local tongue, of _course _he won't understand..." On the Earth, every country or Empire spoke its own language, but learnt Common to trade and communicate across borders. Most children learnt both their native language and Common by the time they were 10.

"Hello. Can you speak Common?" Alfred tried again, fitting his tongue around the different accents of the Magikal language. As the man heard his words, his face lit up in grateful understanding, his posture relaxing.

"Yes, yes, I speak Common!"

Alfred smiled, thrusting his hand back towards the man, who shook it with an enthusiastic nod. No longer deathly afraid of the friendly man, he realised he could simply ask the man what exactly had happened, and who he was. Preferably a 'why?' in there too.

"So, who exactly _are _you?" Alfred gestured to the table for the man to pull up a chair, doing so himself with a deep sigh.

There was a long pause before the man answered.

"My name... It's Gilbert. Gilbert Beilschmidt. I lived in Prussia, _Preu__ß__en _in my language. I was cursed, cursed when I went to visit my brother in Kingdom Britannia by some complete _dickhead twat-faced backstreet whore_ who mistook me for someone else. I was stuck like... that... for about a decade. And a bit."

Gilbert's story shocked Alfred to the core, almost as much as the abrupt change from the enthusiastic nice guy to vicious, insulting guy did. (But not nearly as much as the change from fuck-off beast to kinda hot man had.) He wasn't finished though, and started talking again before Alfred could open his mouth to reply. It seemed that once he was on a roll, he didn't stop.

"I hid in the mountains for a long time, when some demon worshippers caught up to me. They said that I was cursed with a Demonic Affliction, whatever that means, and that I had to find a Pure Sighted Object to rid myself of it. I searched a long time to find one, which eventually led me here, to your Arrow Of Sight."

Alfred didn't know how to answer anything that Gilbert had said. The idea, the story, was simply too fantastical, but then, he had just seen a monster turn into a man in his kitchen. Nothing could truly surprise him anymore. Only one thing in the tale hadn't made any sense at all.

"What _is_ an Arrow Of Sight? I don't own any Magikal Arrow- Oh God, you mean the pendant, don't you?" The realisation struck Alfred the instant that the words had left his mouth, and he gestured to Gilbert to stay where he was whilst he ran upstairs to find the pendant that had caused him so much trouble. In light of the day's events, he'd almost forgotten it existed.

* * *

**AN - Yep, super late. But I've been busy writing other things and I shouldn't try to write 3 major stories at once, it really doesn't work... Sorry!**


	6. The Woman at the Well

Only when Alfred entered his room to find the pendant, there was nothing hanging on the still sparkling chain than a plain metal arrow, very different from the elegant and bejewelled charm that he remembered. There were no adornments on it at all, and the metal almost appeared rusty, a red tinge decorating the tip. He picked it up with wary hands but felt none of the pull and allure he had been entranced by before, nor any pulse of magic.

It was all very strange.

Alfred grabbed a handful of clothes out his wardrobe on his way out for Gilbert, who gladly threw them on when he returned. Alfred's shirt was a little too big for the young monster-turned-man, but the breeches Alfred had found at the bottom of his old clothing pile seemed to fit perfectly. Finally dressed, Gilbert switched to sitting on the table top, much as he had been before. He peered expectantly at Alfred from his new perch, who sat down in the seat he vacated.

"So, where is this Arrow then? You rushed off to find it after all." Gilbert gestured the stairs as he spoke. Alfred held his palm up, uncurling his fingers to reveal the now dark grey metal.

"This... This is it? It was really, really pretty before last night, with all these rubies or something, but I found it like this just now." Gilbert moved closer, until his nose practically brushed the metal. Silence reigned for a few awkward seconds, until he peered up at Alfred through his white fringe, eyebrows furrowed with a curious expression.

"May I hold it? I have a feeling that..." He didn't finish his sentence, but Alfred nodded, tipping the pendant into his hand. It sat innocently in his palm, the dark metal a startling contrast to Gilbert's snow white skin. The tension in the air was electric as both young men waited with bated breath for something, anything to happen.

Nothing did. The Arrow sat plainly in the centre of his palm, without a twitch or a spark.

"That was anticlimactic, huh?" Gilbert said, his smile wavering with unease. Alfred nodded and took back the pendant, placing it gingerly in his pocket. The cool metal sent a shock of shivers across his skin where the material was thinned out from overuse. They continued to sit in silence. Blazing sunshine filled the room as time wore on, and still they said nothing, as if by some agreement. Alfred would normally find himself filled to the brim with questions or at the very least, a burning desire for conversation, but the day was too stifling for words. It wasn't until the midday sun was at its peak in the summer sky that the men moved at all, but once the men were broken out of their reverie to relieve their thirst with water from Alfred's well, they would not find a moment's peace for a long, long time.

They headed outside together, Alfred wordlessly guiding Gilbert to the front of his shop, where the old well was dug deep underground. The townspeople wandered about the streets; occasionally one would hail Alfred, and he would call back a falsely cheerful, "Hullo!". It took the efforts of both men to drag up the water bucket from the well's depths. Alfred had never known nor managed to measure the exact depth of the well shaft, but knew it went down for many hundreds of metres, and was lined with old, red dust bricks from the industrial boom some 100 years ago. A thick layer of slime and algae covered the walls, but despite the crumbling brick dust and the prevalent plant life, the water was always icy cold and fresher than the glacier water from the far lands of Wild Canada. Two long, heavy steel chains draped down into the shaft, to pull up the pails full of water. Even the bucket was ancient, an iron thing with a pearl smooth inside from generations of use.

Alfred and Gilbert could hear the water sloshing over the rims as they heaved the chain up, leaving deep indents in their palms and wrists. When they finally managed to lift it over the raised side of the well, someone on the other side of the street 3 times clapped slowly, and called out in a hoarse, feminine voice, "Well done, lads, well done. Fine job you did there, fine job indeed." The speech dripped with raw sarcasm so strong that even Alfred could hear it, and Gilbert spun around to confront the rude stranger in anger.

"Hey, Saumensch, did we ask for your opinion? No, now shut up. I'd like to see you lift a solid iron bucket full of water as tall as your fucking leg up a well!"

The woman marched across the road at Gilbert's words, tossing her dark hair our of her face before crossing her arms in a huffing motion against her chest. Rather than the usual dress of a towns woman, she wore a pair of pale brown breeches and a white shirt, laced racily across her chest and showing the tanned skin of her chest. The sleeves were loose around her upper arms but still showed the definition of her biceps. As she approached her single raised eyebrow became obvious, much the same as the crooked slash of her mouth, which was pulled so tight her lips were white. Coming to a halt on the other side of the well, she leant her forearms on the edge of the brick wall and lacing her fingers together, cocking her hip up with one leg bent behind the other.

"You'd like to see me try, huh? Let's have a go then." She didn't wait for an answer. Instead, she rolled up the sleeves to her shoulders, revealing a thick, ropey scar burnt deep into the top of her left arm, which twitched and rolled as she grasped the second chain, wrapping her hands around the metal without a flinch. A blood red tattoo-like pattern twisted up the other arm, similar to a vine of ivy leaves. Alfred and Gilbert watched in twin amazement as she yanked hard on the chain, pulling it out in swift motions like the strikes of a snake, allowing the links to slide through her hands before pulling on a piece further up. In a matter of minutes, the woman had brought the pail of water over the edge of the well with almost no discernible effort, a feat which had taken two grown men only a fraction of the time shorter. When the pail was resting atop the wall, she brushed off her hands of the slime from the chain and looked back at the men, who were staring in a mix of abject astonishment and terror. With a laugh, she pushed her hair out of her eyes where some strands had escaped, and something pale purple fell out to the ground.

"Who the _hell_ are you?" asked Alfred incredulously. The woman smiled, very different from the smirk she had been supporting before, and it was like sunshine had burst across her face.

She thrust out a hand over the well for Alfred to shake. "Elizabeta, for all the good it will do you to know that." They shook hands, and Alfred was shocked to realise that her skin was cool, like plant leaves.

"Alfred F Jones." Alfred introduced himself with a small gesture to his chest. When Alfred made to move away, a sharp burning from his pocket caused him to jerk forward, and he felt himself tumble over the edge of the well into the darkness. His hand was wrenched from Elizabeta's and he scrambled to grasp something, anything, to halt his fall.

But he couldn't.

* * *

**AN - I know. It's been a while. But, family, hospitals and mock exams come first. In theory. Hopefully the next one will be sooner...**

**Edit - 06/April - I added Alfred introducing himself to make a section in the next chapter make sense. It should be up either today or tomorrow!**


	7. Falling

_When Alfred made to move away, a sharp burning from his pocket caused him to jerk forward, and he felt himself tumble over the edge of the well into the darkness. His hand was wrenched from Elizabeta's and he scrambled to grasp something, anything, to halt his fall. _

_But he couldn't. _

The wind screamed past his ears, eagle screeches and as painful as talons or claws. A yell of raw terror burst its way through Alfred's lungs and the sound reverberated against the bricks of the well walls. Alfred's hands kept slamming against those walls, shredding the calloused skin on his palms and leaving a layer of slick slime across the open wounds. The combination of the skin being ripped open and the stringy algae mixing up in the lacerations was agony, but felt almost trivial compared to the overwhelming panic consuming Alfred's every thought. He was falling faster and faster, could feel the seconds before he hit the water at the bottom slipping between his fingers like the finest grains of sand. Even as an adult, hitting the water from this height, this fast would break his bones, Alfred knew it, he had seen the mangled body of a child whose playtime had taken a dangerous turn and who had been fished out of the well bottom by his own parents.

The powerful rushing of the wind had forced his eyes shut, but the need to know how long he had left, how soon he would hit the water overpowered the ingrained instinct to protect his eyes and he wrenched them open. It was lighter than he had expected, but rapidly the darkness was closing in as he moved away from the daylight streaming in from the well hole. He looked down, and although he couldn't see the water, he was starting to hear the splashing of the water against the walls over the rushing air. The underground river created the small swells of movement. A metallic, tangy smell assaulted Alfred's nose, the smell of stale liquid drying on stone, and it was strong enough to make the back of his throat tingle unpleasantly.

The fall felt to Alfred like it was taking hours and seconds at the same time. Everything was occurring in a flash yet the time between each second was an eternity. The bottom was so near to Alfred now that he closed his eyes in preparation, tensing every muscle and bracing for the impact that was sure to knock him unconscious.

But nothing could have prepared him for the sheer freezing shock of the well water as it enveloped his entire body in its icy embrace. The impact jarred Alfred, pained shudders thundering through every limb. A fiery pain flew through his upper arm, as if he had stuck it inside the near-molten coals he used to soften the metals for his weapons. He thrashed and writhed as he tried to escape the clutches of the water and was careful not to knock himself against the walls – he did not want to injure his arm past what had already obviously broken. The pressure on his lungs to _breathe _wasn't overpowering, but the shock had caused Alfred to open his mouth and gasp, making him swallow a mouthful of the liquid. Some he breathed in, but he couldn't do anything about it under the water.

Eventually his head broke the surface. Dripping blond hair was plastered to his forehead and all of his clothes were billowing out, except for where his shoulders were exposed to the air. There his shirt clung like a second skin. Shivers racked his body, sending a wave of goose-bumps down his arms. Alfred spluttered and coughed, trying to empty his lungs of the liquid he had inhaled. Time fell back into its normal rhythm, and without the noise of air rushing past his ears, the loudest thing Alfred could hear was his racing heart beat. He trod water with his one good arm.

"ALFRED? _ALFRED?!_"

"Oh my _God _are you okay?!"

The voices of Gilbert and Elizabeta echoed down the well shaft. Raw panic strained their words to screeches. Alfred shifted, cradling his broke arm close to his chest and shouted back up to them.

"I-I'm okay, ish-sh! I, I've br-broken my arm." He hoped that they wouldn't have to roar every word, as he didn't think his voice could handle it. The shivers chattering his teeth made it hard enough to talk.

Gilbert's face appeared in the perfect circle of sky that Alfred could see at the top of the shaft. The contrast of the bright blue sky and the shadows on his face made it impossible to read his expression.

"Thank God, _scheisskopf_, you scared us half to death and _she_ doesn't even know you! We have a plan to get you out though."

Alfred grimaced. "How? You'd never be able to pull me out, not in a million years!"

Elizabeta's face appeared next to Gilbert's, her plait curving over her shoulder like a snake.

"Did you not see how strong I am? With me and him, I can get you back up here. But you're going to have to do some work, okay? Can you do that with your arm?"

Alfred remembered the speed at which she heaved up the water pail and smiled weakly. He was a strong young man, but her brute strength had scared him. There was without a doubt something strange happening with the young woman, but he didn't think it could be as weird as Gilbert's story. So with ginger caution not to jostle his broken right arm, he raised his left to make sure he could work with it. Unfortunately he was right handed and the palm of his left hand was split open and bleeding from the abrasions from the wall, but he thought that he could manage.

"It'll take me a while to do anything but I can manage. What are you thinking?"

Gilbert and Elizabeta shared a look, then simultaneously turned back down to face Alfred. Elizabeta ducked away for a second, then returned with the wooden pail in her hands.

"Well. We're going to drop this down there with you, and you're going to take off as many clothes as will preserve your modesty to make you lighter, because I am _not _hauling wet clothes up here too. Then you're going to put your foot in the bucket, wrap your other leg around the chain and hold on tight whilst we pull you up. If we feel like we're going to drop you, we're going to wrap the excess chain around the pole I assume was put in place for this reason to stop you from falling back down. Understand?" She held the pail over the middle of the hole ready to drop it.

It was a plan, but a reckless and potentially very dangerous plan. However, Alfred knew he had no other viable choices and yelled back an affirmative. The pail fell down towards Alfred, and when it reached the bottom, he caught it in one hand before it could hit his head. He dropped it back into the water beside him, and then very carefully pulled off his breeches and shoes. He couldn't remove his shirt due to his broken arm and left his undergarments on to cover his groin.

He pulled the bucket out of the water and tipped it out. The bucket wasn't massive, but he could fit both feet inside if he put one on top of the other.

A sudden thought struck him. How was he going to get inside the bucket without putting it back inside the water? He could've heaved himself up the wall with one hand and held the bucket steady with the other, but with his dominant arm incapacitated the manoeuvre would be damn near impossible.

Alfred articulated his worry up to Gilbert and Elizabeta. Both were equally stumped. All of them knew that the bucket would have to be empty for them to possibly carry Alfred's weight; there was no way around the fact.

"What if... What if we held up the bucket a little whilst it's in the water?" Elizabeta said, the lilt in her words belying her anxiousness. Gilbert snorted a huff of laughter, gesturing down into the well.

"Well, duh, Princess, the water'll get in the bucket if we do that, won't it?"

Elizabeta's retort was laced with a quiet, dangerous fire that made Alfred very glad he wasn't on the receiving end of her wrath. "No, I mean that if we pull up the pail so that only the bottom is in the water and not over the rim, then Alfred might be able to pull himself into it. Any water that gets in as it sinks with his weight he can tip out if he rocks his feet." There was a pregnant pause. "_Duh_."

"Don't you get funny with me, Princess, I was just pointing out what was clearly a flaw in the plan that you so shittily explained at first -"

"Because you didn't give a _chance to explain_-"

Alfred interrupted when he realised that the steadily rising voices preluded a vicious fight and he did actually want to get out of the bottom of the well sometime before night fall.

"Gilbert! Elizabeta! It should work, so let's get on with it, yeah?"

Alfred's shout broke the other two out of their rage fuelled world and after much swearing, grunting and screaming in pain from Alfred as his broken arm was knocked and bashed they managed to fit him into the bucket, his left arm gripping the metal chain in a deadlock, hoping against hope that it was strong enough to take his weight.

"You ready for this Al?" Gilbert had taken to calling him by the nickname after becoming 'fed up with yelling more syllables than needed far too often'. (Alfred thought that Gilbert just wanted to give him a nickname but didn't want to come across as too friendly for fear that he wouldn't seem manly in front of the masculine Elizabeta. Alfred had seem him stammering thanks in tearful Common and so really couldn't care less how Gilbert referred to him. He had been called much worse.)

"Ready!" He called back and braced himself for the first jolt of movement. It came, followed by grunts of effort from Gilbert and Elizabeta as they heaved his body weight up from 100 metres up. A frustrated, sarcastic cheer came from Gilbert as Alfred started to move up towards them, slow progress though it was. A few times the chain slipped, and Alfred felt the bucket start to fall, but one of the two always managed to hold on and keep him from plummeting down the well again.

Approximately half way up the well however, Alfred realised that his ascent had dramatically and suddenly slowed to a crawl.

"Is everything alright up there?" he shouted in concern. "Gilbert? Elizabeta? Are you okay?"

"Gilbert's strength... gave up. He's just... fainted for... some reason." Elizabeta's voice was strained and she was spitting out each word from behind gritted teeth. "I... I have one thing I can do to... _ungh_... get you up. But... it's not going to be..._for God's sake __**arrgggh**__..._ pretty. I'll explain... properly when you... get up here. But I can give myself... an extra burst of... _arrrgh... _strength."

Alfred was utterly confused. "Okay. I think I'm going to have to say go for it, because I really have no other choice."

"RIGHT!" Elizabeta let out a scream that rattled through Alfred's chest where it echoed down the well, and he found himself flying up the rest of the well shaft in seconds. The bucket swayed and swung in small circles from the speed and Alfred found himself laughing in a terrified, exhilarated glee. When he reached the top, he found his working wrist being grabbed by Elizabeta's rough, calloused, _cool_ hands and his whole body being heaved onto the grass beside the well. Gilbert's resting form lay beside him. The twilight dusk sky was a golden haze over the landscape and Alfred still couldn't stop laughing. He turned his head to thank Elizabeta, and found with a jolt that he could in fact stop the giggles erupting from his chest. He sat up weakly and gazed in a horrified kind of wonder at her body.

Every visible inch of skin was a pale green, except for her ankles, where it darkened into a deep brown. Pale pink buds and hot pink blooms were tangled in her plait, their stems growing from between her hairs. The scar that had stood out before was split open and a boiling red, like it was a fresh burn rather than an old wound, and every muscle was corded and taut. The leaf patterned tattoo had vanished.

Elizabeta flung her arms open wide, smiling a little too manically for Alfred to be comfortable.

"Perhaps Alfred, now would be a good time to introduce myself properly. I am Elizabeta Hedavery, strongest woman in the Empire of the Union of Austria and Hungary. Cursed to be like _this_ for my vain need to be even stronger, cursed for having the 'audacity'" This word she spat, her eyes narrowing and her lips curling into a sneer. "to steal a spell known only to the Pixie Queen. Cursed to be only strong when I can be as strong as a tree, like the trees I cut down to start my spell."

Then the woman sunk to her knees and cried.

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**AN - Woah slightly longer chapter than usual! And just as late, as usual. My updates may be slow, but I promise that they will arrive! **

**I'm looking for a beta, by the way. In case anyone wants to offer. **


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